Businesses or other entities having a need for volume printing typically use a production printer capable of printing hundreds of pages per minute. A web of print media, such as paper, is stored the form of a large roll and unraveled as a continuous sheet. During printing, the web is quickly passed underneath printheads which discharge small drops of ink at particular intervals to form pixel images on the web. The web may then be dried and cut to produce a printed product.
In dryers that apply a great deal of heat over a short period of time, it remains a problem to ensure that the print media is properly dried. Too much heat can cause the media to char or burn, while too little heat can result in ink smearing or offsetting that reduces the print quality of jobs. Moreover, other problems in the dryer may occur such as curling or wrinkling of the media due to non-uniform stresses applied to the media during high rates of thermal exchange. Such problems may be amplified as the paper cools in an uncontrolled and non-uniform manner.